Industrial vehicles are commonly used to transport materials and equipment in a facility. Industrial vehicles are particularly useful for transporting loads that are too heavy to be transported by human-powered means. A variety of positioning systems have been employed for tracking the location of an industrial vehicle within a facility. These positioning systems are useful for providing the operator of an industrial vehicle with navigational assistance, as well as providing a supervisor with an overview of the distribution of the industrial vehicle fleet within a warehouse (e.g., for dispatching purposes).
Many conventional positioning systems presently utilized in determining the location of an industrial vehicle rely upon radio frequency (RF) technology. These RF-based positioning systems typically include transmitters (e.g., radio transmitters, radio beacons, etc.) positioned throughout the facility. A receiver (e.g., radio receiver) positioned in the industrial vehicle receives signals from the transmitters that are within range. These conventional systems usually then calculate the position of the industrial vehicle based upon the location of origin and signal strength of the received signals. Examples of such conventional RF-based systems include RFID-based positioning systems, GPS-based positioning systems, cellular-based positioning systems, and WLAN-based positioning systems.
While these conventional positioning systems can accurately locate an industrial vehicle, there are significant drawbacks to utilization of these systems. For example, these systems can be difficult and expensive to install and maintain. In addition, these conventional systems may be impractical or unreliable due to inherent limitations of radio transmissions such as direct line of sight requirements and signal interference.
What is needed is an industrial vehicle positioning system that can be installed and maintained in a cost-effective manner, and that does not require the use of radio frequency signals.